Antique buffet painted with Annie Sloan chalk paint

End of July a darling couple who live more than an hour away from my workshop (!) asked me to paint and refresh their antique buffet and vintage dresser. Structurally great pieces but both were in need of an update. Here is a pic of the LARGE buffet:

Looks a bit sad, right, but all the hardware was intact, drawers were working, nothing missing or broken, so this is a good piece of furniture in my opinion! Even though it is not necessary to sand and prime the furniture before painting with chalk paint, I did clean the furniture very well with a tsp solution, and only sanded the top.

My customer choose Aubusson blue/green chalk paint and to be honest I could not have chosen a better color for this buffet. The paint went on smooth and I gave it two coats. After drying for a day or two I gave it a light sanding ( just a light distressing on the corners etc.) and continued with the waxing. First a layer of clear wax and topped it with layer of dark wax to achieve the antique and distressed look. I have a specific waxing brush and I use a micro fiber cloth to smooth the wax out. Always work in small areas and do not rush! This is hard labor but I managed to do this in the month of August (yep, the temp was 90 something..). Quite a workout folks!

Here are a few pics after one and two coats of paint, before the waxing. This buffet had a very bad tobacco smell and after cleaning I still had to put dryer sheets for the smell. Yes, next time I will wash with vinegar (thanks Sharon..).

Hetty, your buffet is beautiful. I can see why your customer was so happy! Thank you for sharing it at Project Queen’s Link Party last week. I will be featuring it tomorrow night (Monday) at the Highlight Party.

Love this re-creation!! How did you clean the hardware?? Just decided yesterday to paint our mother-in-law’s old buffet (almost an exact replica of this one) so we really appreciatd this link. We found a local shop that sells Annie Sloan’s products and will be visiting them this week.